[url]
http://www.syracuse.com/outdoors/syrnewspapers/index.ssf?/sportsstories/20011122_shunter.html[/url]
Too many deer, not enough hunters To combat the problem, DEC officials consider bigger bag limits and longer seasons.
Thursday, November 22, 2001
By J. Michael Kelly
Department of Environmental Conservation biologists expect hunters to kill
about 300,000 white-tailed deer, an all-time record, before the season
winds down in mid-December.
Even that many may not be enough.
New York has an expanding deer herd but a shrinking population of hunters.
As a result of those diverging trends, the DEC is considering bigger bag
limits, longer seasons and other changes in deer-hunting regulations.
In 1996, DEC biologist J. Edward Kautz developed a computer model which
predicted the number of licensed big-game hunters in the state between the
ages of 16 and 64 would decline from 538,000 to 334,000 - a 38 percent
reduction - by the year 2008.
His forecast worried big-game managers, for hunting is the primary method
of controlling deer herds throughout the United States.
As it turns out, hunters are hanging in there a little tougher than Kautz
predicted.
"The decline has not been quite as rapid as I thought it would be," he
said last week. "Right now we have about 480,000 resident big-game hunters
between the ages of 16 and 65. That's about 40,000 more than I had
projected by this time."
Nevertheless, veteran hunters are still getting out of the sport at a
faster rate than neophytes are taking it up, he said.
DEC biologists hope to compensate by enabling remaining hunters to kill
more deer.
The agency has encouraged a bigger doe kill by distributing
ever-increasing numbers of deer-management permits in recent seasons. Such
permits entitle the holder to kill an antlerless whitetail, in addition to
the single buck that's allowed every big-game license-buyer.
This fall, hunters went afield with a record 570,000 deer-management
permits. A majority received two permits, and hunters in some Western New
York wildlife management units wound up with three permits apiece.
Three years ago, the DEC launched the Deer Management Assistance Program,
which issues special hunting permits to land owners who are losing crops,
forests or shrubbery to over-abundant whitetails. The recipients must hand
out the permits to licensed hunters for use during the regular deer season
only. Last year, hunters across the state used DMAP permits to kill 7,994
antlerless deer.
More changes are under review, including:
A new opening day: The bulk of New York's annual deer kill occurs during
the Southern Zone regular firearms season, which for decades has opened on
the first Monday after Nov. 15. The DEC is thinking of starting the hunt
on a Saturday, instead.
"For many, many years we were opposed to that idea because we thought it
would bring too many hunters out there at once," Henry said. "Now our best
guess is it would bring the opening-day participation up to what it was in
1989, which is where we'd like to be."
A Saturday opener would give more school-age hunters an opportunity to be
afield, Henry said. It would probably increase the venison harvest, as
well, since more than half of the deer killed in a typical New York season